Death won over Time but Only by Mere Seconds
by Adria626
Summary: The history of the five and Helen's relationships with all of them. Multiple pairings and four chapters. Enjoy.
1. Chapter 1

**Death won over Time but Only by Mere Seconds**

_'One short sleep past we wake and Death shall be no more, Death thou shall die.' "In retrospect there were markers, subtle hints, but we were young and believe it or not even a tad bit arrogant." Nikola Tesla: For King and Country _

**The Five: 1**

They thought they would all live forever. They had never been more wrong.

The first to go was Nigel in 1960. Helen's blood didn't work as well as they had hoped. He died peacefully, only telling Helen of his protégé with Jeanette.

John was at his funeral, unlike Nikola's fake one in the 1940's. Helen ignored her old lover and father of her frozen daughter. James held her close and Nikola leered as he said a prayer for his invisible chemist friend.

Helen missed Nigel's laugh, James's kindness, Nikola's sarcasm, and John's sonnets. Out of all that she missed the constant companionship, the discovery, breaking boundaries of science, and the friendships that came from nights creating new equations, mixing chemicals, and giggling at Nigel's latest joke or arguing with Nikola on why John, a Philosophy Major was with a group of scientist when he didn't even know one thing about science, just history, literature, and poetry.

The only use he was to them was a distraction for Helen and James, an irritation to Nikola, and a nuisance to Nigel's work. He could however, write their memoires one day or leave the information at some inconspicuous author's door.

James was the last and second of them to die. And it broke what was left of Helen's heart.

They thought Death couldn't touch them. They were wrong, so very wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

_'Time's a strange Fellow more He takes than gives, and He takes all.'_

John took everything from Helen and never gave it back. She never forgave herself for not seeing John's demise sooner.

The love they had shared before the Source Blood would always be remembered in the back of her mind. It was real and so very romantically endearing.

He never knew she was pregnant, only James knew and helped her freeze the embryo. Unlike John, James never judged, only ever helped to the best of his abilities and talents. Nikola and Nigel never suspected her condition.

She would have named the child after her cousin, the closest thing to a sibling she ever had, Ashley Magnus. Even though her cousin was a boy who died of pneumonia when he was seventeen, he was her only friend growing up and a budding scientist. When he died her father decided to pass his work to Helen, his only living relative.

John was her first patient, love, lover, and father of a child she had to hide away. He read her poetry, wrote her sonnets, professed his love in ways no other man had. Roses every morning in their lab, lunch served to her when she forgot to eat, and a reading of Shakespeare read by John after they made love to put her to sleep.

She loved him with all her being, and then the man had the audacity to destroy her heart, leaving her and their child with nothing, only memories of a time of love.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I know I know I forgot to do the disclaimer. I own nothing of Sanctuary, only five episodes I watch over and over. One day I'll own a cat named Nikola Tesla, and a dog named Thomas Edison and watch Tesla claw the crap out of the dog. Just kidding that was mean. Anyway enjoy this wonderful story that came to me in the middle of the day instead of the appropriate time at night. Have fun, and have Kleenexes ready. This may be a tad bit sad. Perhaps, most likely, probably, okay it is sad…but not too sad…maybe. **

'_Indeed there will be time for you and time for me, for a hundred decisions and indecisions before the taking of toast and tea.' _

**James and Helen: 3**

They thought they had all the time in the world, time enough to love, to hold, to live forever. He didn't have it in his heart to tell her he was dying. He had built the device to stay with her for as long as time would allow.

James Watson was an inventor, mastermind, sleuth, detective, and a man of eternal middle age. He knew if he left for any reason she would have Nikola and John—if she could ever forgive John for breaking her heart into a billion little pieces.

They had eighty years together. Eighty years of companionship, love, marriage, loyalty, and comfort.

His mortality got in the way. They could not have children, no matter how hard they tried. So since they had both loved John, Helen and James decided to have her daughter. Helen named her Ashley, and she was beautiful, adorable.

The year Ashley turned six she figured out James really wasn't her father and the device he had tried his best to hide from her. James decided to leave well enough alone—and left with a note that mostly likely made Helen furious.

Helen had never forgiven him for leaving, though every year around her birthday they would go to Italy and browse her villa, making mad passionate love for a week.

Until he saw her last fall she had not called him for anything; but he teased her about it trying to hint at his undying love for her and his inevitable demise.

As he lay dying, he thought back to those eighty years and how she would tell no one about them, keeping them only to herself, in her heart where he would remain until time finally brought them back together.


	4. Chapter 4

'_Oh I know that the music's fine like sparklin' wine go and have your fun. But while I'm gone don't forget who's taken you home and in whose arms you're gonna be. Oh darlin' save the last dance for me.'_

He could not deny Nikola had loved her more than his wine and his experiments put together since Oxford, before the Five, before Johnny Druitt. She just couldn't find it in her to love him in return at the time.

James had been her savior, rescuer, comrade, companion, lover, friend, but never a best friend to whom she could tell everything and anything to. Nikola had always been her very best friend, from the day she had caught him sipping cheap wine and feeding his beloved pigeons.

Laying in his arms now after returning him to a vampire she thought back to the boy she met with hardly a word of English, his accent so thick as he rambled he would start speaking in Serbian. She would never forget the shocked expression on his face when she started talking back in his native tongue.

She could imagine now that they could have conversations in Serbian around John to torture the man she once loved, though most of the things Nikola would say would be unmentionable even to Helen's ears.

Helen had saved her last dance for Nikola, waiting until he couldn't die on her (very easily) and was much more sincere. She didn't love him like John or James, she loved him more.

Because who in their right mind could ever refuse him with that hair?


End file.
